T in the Park - A muddy adventure with the Olympus Stylus Tough TG4
Sam and I had a very exciting day at T in the Park yesterday. With the kids away on a school trip, we decided to go on a crazy adventure! Of course I'm always thinking about photos, even when I'm drinking beer and having fun, so I was excited to take along my new little Olympus Stylus Tough TG4. I had worked out how to set it to RAW and turn off the flash, and that was it. The rest was trial and error! I debated whether to post this on my website or not, as this isn't my usual style of photography, and isn't my usual kit, but I found it a really interesting experience so I thought I'd share the results. Since going professional I've never used a point and shoot even for personal work, I've always insisted on carting my tonne of Canon gear around with me (or relying on my phone). I thought I'd get the Olympus as it got great reviews and, like it's name suggests, is super tough, even being waterproof to 15m depth and shock proof from heights of up to 2.1m. I can now confirm it is also mud-proof to T in the Park standards, which as you can see from the photos below is pretty flipping muddy!
I can't lie, I did miss my Canon bodies and all my lovely lenses, BUT....there is no way on earth I could have taken them into that arena and got out with them intact. The best camera is the one you can take with you...so in this case the Olympus wins hands down.
I am a big fan of street photography, but always struggle with it a bit myself, as it's not my usual style. When it comes to still life, I like to carefully compose. When it comes to documentary style, again I'll compose the scene and then stay there in position quietly waiting for someone or something to happen within the frame I have set. I love working like this, but at something like a festival - or on a busy wedding dance floor - it's just not possible. So what I've learnt lately, and put into practise yesterday, was to just shoot shoot shoot, and trust that there would be something there. I did some thinking and some framing too, and some squatting in the mud at odd angles, but most of this is just showing what happened and how it felt to be there.
This is certainly no professional review of the Olympus TG4, which has a zillion features I am yet to discover - but for what it's worth here are some happy memories it helped me to capture in a pretty extreme environment!
(Technical details - all the below are shot in RAW with no flash, auto ISO. Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop)
